May ♥ The ♥ Paw ♥ Be ♥ With ♥ You

Throughout the ages, cats have
been the subjects of stories in literature and legend from the ancient
world of the Egyptians who worshipped them, to the popular cultures of
the modern world. Cats are everywhere; in books, on TV, in the movies,
cartoons, newspapers, on the net and in our homes.

Here are some of
the many famous beloved felines we all know N love below:

Garfield

The striped and bulgy-eyed comic
strip cat know as Garfield is known for his obnoxious comments, especially
to his owner Jon, his appetite, and his lazy lifestyle. He often plays
tricks on Jon and Odie (the dog).

“I’m not over-weight, I’m under-tall."

Hodge

Samuel Johnson, the
formidable writer of the immortal
Dictionary
of the English Language of 1755,
was a fool for his beloved cat Hodge. He was even known to feed his feline
friend oysters, which Johnson himself— and not his house staff— would fetch
from the local market.

A poem by Sarah Chauncy Woolsey (Susan Coolidge)

Burly and big, his books among,
Good Samuel Johnson sat,
With frowning brows and wig askew,
His snuff-strewn waistcoat far from new;
So stern and menacing his air,
That neither Black Sam,
nor the maid
To knock or interrupt him dare;
Yet close beside him, unafraid,
Sat Hodge, the cat.

"This participle," the Doctor wrote,
"The modern scholar cavils at,
But," - even as he penned the word,
A soft, protesting note was heard;
The Doctor fumbled with his pen,
The dawning thought took wings and flew,
The sound repeated, come again,
It was a faint, reminding "Mew!"
From Hodge, the cat...

The Dictionary was laid down,
The Doctor tied his vast cravat,
And down the buzzing street he strode,
Taking an often-trodden road,
And halted at a well-known stall:
"Fishmonger," spoke the Doctor gruff,
"Give me six oysters, that is all;
Hodge knows when he has had enough,
Hodge is my cat."

Then home; puss dined and while in sleep
he chased a visionary rat,
His master sat him down again,
Rewrote his page, renibbed his pen;
Each "i" was dotted, each "t" was crossed,
He labored on for all to read,
Nor deemed that time was waste or lost
Spent in supplying the small need
Of Hodge, the cat.

The dear old Doctor! Fierce of mien,
Untidy, arbitrary, fat,
What gentle thought his name enfold!
So generous of his scanty gold.
So quick to love, so hot to scorn,
Kind to all sufferers under heaven,
A tend'rer despot ne'er was born;
His big heart held a corner, even
For Hodge, the cat.

Mehitabel

Mehitabel, created (1916) by Don Marquis, was a fictional alley cat who
appeared in The Saturday Evening Post along with her sidekick Archy.
There is book of collected cartoons still in
print.

Mehitabel is an alley cat with a celebrated past -
she claims she was Cleopatra in a previous life! Her sidekick Archy, is a
cockroach, with the soul of a poet.

Slippers is a gray cat with 6
toes on each paw (polydactyl). She was a favorite cat of
President Theodore Roosevelt.
It is said that he allowed her to appear at diplomatic dinners.

Felix

Felix is a black cat who is
one of the first great stars of animated cartoons and the hero of Pat
Sullivan's cartoon series, "Felix the Cat" who always had a bag of
tricks!

The Cheshire Cat

The Cheshire Cat could
slowly disappear, leaving only it's grin behind as Lewis Carroll
described him - " he is a smiling British Shorthair with a ringed
tail."

Cardinal Richelieu's

N His Cats LUCIFER

Cardinal Richelieu shared his home
with as many as 14 cats. Lucifer, named for the fallen angel Satan
was one of them. Legend has it that
Lucifer smuggled the cats who were also persecuted at the witchcraft
trials by his master, onto ships bound for the New World. It was well
known that sailors like cats because their “magic spells” are less
dangerous on board a ship than are rats, so the cats were more than
welcome. Also according to legend, over a thousand cats reached what are
now Canada and the United States. Lucifer was black.

Chessie

During the depression
era, the C&O (Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad) started looking for a new
advertising slogan to show how smooth and relaxing a railroad ride could be. At
about that time, the company's Vice President, Lionel C. Probert, noticed a
picture of a sweet little kitten sleeping on a pillow in the New York's Herald
Tribune, next to an article on kindness to animals. After seeing the picture,
Mr. Probert wondered if he should change his proposed slogan of "Sleep Like a
Top" to "Sleep Like a Kitten" to advertise the railroad's new wonderful cooling
system - air conditioning.

Upon further
investigation, Mr. Probert found that the Herald Tribune's picture, later to
become known as the Chessie cat, was created by Guido Gruenewald of Vienna,
Austria.

His fame is from Starkist Tuna and 9-Lives cat food commercials. He
even ran for President of the United States.

The original Morris was found at an Animal Shelter in Illinois by Bob
Martwick, his trainer.

The original Morris died in the 1970's.

Sylvester

Sylvester is the black and
white cartoon cat who often sputters "Sufferin' Succotash!" when he is
thwarted by his main adversary, Tweety Pie, the little yellow canary.
Although he tried millions of tricks, he never got the canary and always
wound up being the fall guy!

Selima

Selima was a
tortoiseshell tabby cat owned by Horace Walpole (1717-1779). He was a
friend of the poet Thomas Gray, and when she drowned in a goldfish bowl,
Gray wrote a poem to commemorate the event, called
Ode on the death of a favorite cat drowned
in a tub of Gold Fishes (1748).

"On a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of
Gold Fishes"

TWAS on a lofty vase's side,
Where China's gayest art had dyed
The azure flowers that blow;
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima reclined,
Gazed on the lake below.

Her conscious tail
her joy declared;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,
Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,
She saw; and purr'd applause.

Still had she gazed;
but 'midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,
The Genii of the stream:
Their scaly armour's Tyrian hue
Thro' richest purple to the view
Betray'd a golden gleam.

The hapless Nymph
with wonder saw:
A whisker first and then a claw,
With many an ardent wish,
She stretch'd in vain to reach the prize.
What female heart can gold despise?
What Cat 's averse to fish?

Presumptuous Maid!
with looks intent
Again she stretch'd, again she bent,
Nor knew the gulf between.
(Malignant Fate sat by, and smiled.)
The slipp'ry verge her feet beguiled,
She tumbled headlong in.

Eight times emerging
from the flood
She mew'd to ev'ry wat'ry god,
Some speedy aid to send.
No Dolphin came, no Nereid stirr'd:
Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard.
A Fav'rite has no friend!

From hence, ye
Beauties, undeceived,
Know, one false step is ne'er retrieved,
And be with caution bold.
Not all that tempts your wand'ring eyes
And heedless hearts, is lawful prize;
Nor all that glisters, gold.

Pink Panther

The animated and rose colored feline
called The Pink Panther made his debut in 1964 in a movie by the same
name. He often matches wits with humans and always manages to escape harm.
But, in his wake, he leaves turmoil!

Tobermory

Tobermory is a cat whose ability to speak devastated the guests at a
house party in "

It was a chill,
rain-washed afternoon of a late August day, that indefinite season
when partridges are still in security or cold storage, and there is
nothing to hunt--unless one is bounded on the north by the Bristol
Channel, in which case one may lawfully gallop after fat red stags.
Lady Blemley's house-party was not bounded on the north by the Bristol
Channel, hence there was a full gathering of her guests round the
tea-table on this particular afternoon. And, in spite of the blankness
of the season and the triteness of the occasion, there was no trace in
the company of that fatigued restlessness which means a dread of the
pianola and a subdued hankering for auction bridge. The undisguised
openmouthed attention of the entire party was fixed on the homely
negative personality of Mr. Cornelius Appin. Of all her guests, he was
the one who had come to Lady Blemley with the vaguest reputation. Some
one had said he was "clever," and he had got his invitation in the
moderate expectation, on the part of his hostess, that some portion at
least of his cleverness would be contributed to the general
entertainment. Until tea-time that day she had been unable to discover
in what direction, if any, his cleverness lay. He was neither a wit
nor a croquet champion, a hypnotic force nor a begetter of amateur
theatricals. Neither did his exterior suggest the sort of man in whom
women are willing to pardon a generous measure of mental deficiency.
He had subsided into mere Mr. Appin, and the Cornelius seemed a piece
of transparent baptismal bluff. And now he was claiming to have
launched on the world a discovery beside which the invention of
gunpowder, of the printing-press, and of steam locomotion were
inconsiderable trifles. Science had made bewildering strides in many
directions during recent decades, but this thing seemed to belong to
the domain of miracle rather than to scientific achievement.

"And do you really ask
us to believe," Sir Wilfrid was saying, "that you have discovered a
means for instructing animals in the art of human speech, and that
dear old Tobermory has proved your first successful pupil?"

"It is a problem at
which I have worked for the last seventeen years," said Mr. Appin, "
but only during the last eight or nine months have I been rewarded
with glimmerings of success. Of course I have experimented with
thousands of animals, but latterly only with cats, those wonderful
creatures which have assimilated themselves so marvellously with our
civilization while retaining all their highly developed feral
instincts. Here and there among cats one comes across an outstanding
superior intellect, just as one does among the ruck of human beings,
and when I made the acquaintance of Tobermory a week ago I saw at once
that I was in contact with a 'Beyond-cat' of extraordinary
intelligence. I had gone far along the road to success in recent
experiments; with Tobermory, as you call him, I have reached the
goal."

Mr. Appin concluded
his remarkable statement in a voice which he strove to divest of a
triumphant inflection. No one said "Rats," though Clovis's lips moved
in a monosyllabic contortion which probably invoked those rodents of
disbelief.

"And do you mean to
say," asked Miss Resker, after a slight pause, "that you have taught
Tobermory to say and understand easy sentences of one syllable?"

"My dear Miss Resker,"
said the wonderworker patiently, "one teaches little children and
savages and backward adults in that piecemeal fashion; when one has
once solved the problem of making a beginning with an animal of highly
developed intelligence one has no need for those halting methods.
Tobermory can speak our language with perfect correctness."

This time Clovis very
distinctly said, " Beyond-rats!" Sir Wilfrid was more polite, but
equally sceptical.

"Hadn't we better have
the cat in and judge for ourselves?" suggested Lady Blemley.

Sir Wilfrid went in
search of the animal, and the company settled themselves down to the
languid expectation of witnessing some more or less adroit
drawing-room ventriloquism.

In a minute Sir
Wilfrid was back in the room, his face white beneath its tan and his
eyes dilated with excitement.

"By Gad, it's true!"

His agitation was
unmistakably genuine, and his hearers started forward in a thrill of
awakened interest.

Collapsing into an
armchair he continued breathlessly: "I found him dozing in the
smoking-room, and called out to him to come for his tea. He blinked at
me in his usual way, and I said, 'Come on, Toby; don't keep us
waiting;' and, by Gad! he drawled out in a most horribly natural voice
that he'd come when he dashed well pleased! I nearly jumped out of my
skin!"

In tile midst of the
clamour Tobermory entered the room and made his way with velvet tread
and studied unconcern across to the group seated round the tea-table.

A sudden hush of
awkwardness and constraint fell on the company. Somehow there seemed
an element of embarrassment in addressing on equal terms a domestic
cat of acknowledged dental ability.

"Will you have some
milk, Tobermory?" asked Lady Blemley in a rather strained voice.

"I don't mind if I
do," was the response, couched in a tone of even indifference. A
shiver of suppressed excitement went through the listeners, and Lady
Blemley might be excused for pouring out the saucerful of milk rather
unsteadily.

"I'm afraid I've spilt
a good deal of it," she said apologetically.

"After all, it's not
my Axminster," was Tobermory's rejoinder.

Another silence fell
on the group, and then Miss Resker, in her best district-visitor
manner, asked if the human language had been difficult to learn.
Tobermory looked squarely at her for a moment and then fixed his gaze
serenely on the middle distance. It was obvious that boring questions
lay outside his scheme of life.

"You put me in an
embarrassing position," said Tobermory, whose tone and attitude
certainly did not suggest a shred of embarrassment. "When your
inclusion in this house-party was suggested Sir Wilfrid protested that
you were the most brainless woman of his acquaintance, and that there
was a wide distinction between hospitality and the care of the
feeble-minded. Lady Blemley replied that your lack of brain-power was
the precise quality which had earned you your invitation, as you were
the only person she could think of who might be idiotic enough to buy
their old car. You know, the one they call 'The Envy of Sisyphus,'
because it goes quite nicely up-hill if you push it."

Lady Blemley's
protestations would have had greater effect if she had not casually
suggested to Mavis only that morning that the car in question would be
just the thing for her down at her Devonshire home.

Major Barfield plunged
in heavily to effect a diversion.

"How about your
carryings-on with the tortoiseshell puss up at the stables, eh?"

The moment he had said
it every one realized the blunder.

"One does not usually
discuss these matters in public," said Tobermory frigidly. "From a
slight observation of your ways since you've been in this house I
should imagine you'd find it inconvenient if I were to shift the
conversation on to your own little affairs."

The panic which ensued
was not confined to the Major.

"Would you like to go
and see if cook has got your dinner ready?" suggested Lady Blemley
hurriedly, affecting to ignore the fact that it wanted at least two
hours to Tobermory's dinner-time.

"Thanks," said
Tobermory, "not quite so soon after my tea. I don't want to die of
indigestion."

"Cats have nine lives,
you know," said Sir Wilfrid heartily.

"Possibly," answered
Tobermory; "but only one liver."

"Adelaide!" said Mrs.
Cornett, "do you mean to encourage that cat to go out and gossip about
us in the servants' hall?"

The panic had indeed
become general. A narrow ornamental balustrade ran in front of most of
the bedroom windows at the Towers, and it was recalled with dismay
that this had formed a favourite promenade for Tobermory at all hours,
whence he could watch the pigeons--and heaven knew what else besides.
If he intended to become reminiscent in his present outspoken strain
the effect would be something more than disconcerting. Mrs. Cornett,
who spent much time at her toilet table, and whose complexion was
reputed to be of a nomadic though punctual disposition, looked as ill
at ease as the Major. Miss Scrawen, who wrote fiercely sensuous poetry
and led a blameless life, merely displayed irritation; if you are
methodical and virtuous in private you don't necessarily want every
one to know it. Bertie van Tahn, who was so depraved at seventeen that
he had long ago given up trying to be any worse, turned a dull shade
of gardenia white, but he did not commit the error of dashing out of
the room like Odo Finsberry, a young gentleman who was understood to
be reading for the Church and who was possibly disturbed at the
thought of scandals he might hear concerning other people. Clovis had
the presence of mind to maintain a composed exterior; privately he was
calculating how long it would take to procure a box of fancy mice
through the agency of the EXCHANGE AND MART as a species of hush-
money.

Even in a delicate
situation like the present, Agnes Resker could not endure to remain
too long in the-background.

"Why did I ever come
down here she asked dramatically.

Tobermory immediately
accepted the opening.

"Judging by what you
said to Mrs. Cornett on the croquet-lawn yesterday, you were out for
food. You described the Blemleys as the dullest people to stay with
that you knew, but said they were clever enough to employ a first-rate
cook; otherwise they'd find it difficult to get anyone to come down a
second time."

"There's not a word of
truth in it! I appeal to Mrs. Cornett--" exclaimed the discomfited
Agnes.

At this point the
chronicle mercifully ceased. Tobermory had caught a glimpse of the big
yellow Tom from the Rectory working his way through the shrubbery
towards the stable wing. In a flash he had vanished through the open
French window.

With the disappearance
of his too brilliant pupil Cornelius Appin found himself beset by a
hurricane of bitter upbraiding, anxious inquiry, and frightened
entreaty. The responsibility for the situation lay with him, and he
must prevent matters from becoming worse. Could Tobermory impart his
dangerous gift to other cats? was the first question he had to answer.
It was possible, he replied, that he might have initiated his intimate
friend the stable puss into his new accomplishment, but it was
unlikely that his teaching could have taken a wider range as yet.

"Then," said Mrs.
Cornett, "Tobermory may be a valuable cat and a great pet; but I'm
sure you'll agree, Adelaide, that both he and the stable cat must be
done away with without delay."

"You don't suppose
I've enjoyed the last quarter of an hour, do you?" said Lady Blemley
bitterly. "My husband and I are very fond of Tobermory--at least, we
were before this horrible accomplishment was infused into him; but
now, of course, the only thing is to have him destroyed as soon as
possible."

"We can put some
strychnine in the scraps he always gets at dinner-time," said Sir
Wilfrid, "and I will go and drown the stable cat myself. The coachman
will be very sore at losing his pet, but I'll say a very catching form
of mange has broken out in both cats and we're afraid of it spreading
to the kennels."

"But my great
discovery!" expostulated Mr. Appin; "after all my years of research
and experiment--"

"You can go and
experiment on the shorthorns at the farm, who are under proper
control," said Mrs. Cornett, "or the elephants at the Zoological
Gardens. They're said to be highly intelligent, and they have this
recommendation, that they don't come creeping about our bedrooms and
under chairs, and so forth."

An archangel
ecstatically proclaiming the Millennium, and then finding that it
clashed unpardonably with Henley and would have to be indefinitely
postponed, could hardly have felt more crestfallen than Cornelius
Appin at the reception of his wonderful achievement. Public opinion,
however, was against him--in fact, had the general voice been
consulted on the subject it is probable that a strong minority vote
would have been in favour of including him in the strychnine diet.

Defective train
arrangements and a nervous desire to see matters brought to a finish
prevented an immediate dispersal of the party, but dinner that evening
was not a social success. Sir Wilfrid had had rather a trying time
with the stable cat and subsequently with the coachman. Agnes Resker
ostentatiously limited her repast to a morsel of dry toast, which she
bit as though it were a personal enemy; while Mavis Pellington
maintained a vindictive silence throughout the meal. Lady Blemley kept
up a flow of what she hoped was conversation, but her attention was
fixed on the doorway. A plateful of carefully dosed fish scraps was in
readiness on the sideboard, but sweets and savoury and dessert went
their way, and no Tobermory appeared either in the dining- room or
kitchen.

The sepulchral dinner
was cheerful compared with the subsequent vigil in the smoking-room.
Eating and drinking had at least supplied a distraction and cloak to
the prevailing embarrassment. Bridge was out of the question in the
general tension of nerves and tempers, and after Odo Finsberry had
given a lugubrious rendering of "Melisande in the Wood" to a frigid
audience, music was tacitly avoided. At eleven the servants went to
bed, announcing that the small window in the pantry had been left open
as usual for Tobermory's private use. The guests read steadily through
the current batch of magazines, and fell back gradually, on the
"Badminton Library " and bound volumes of PUNCH. Lady Blemley made
periodic visits to the pantry, returning each time with an expression
of listless depression which forestalled questioning.

At two o'clock Clovis
broke the dominating silence.

"He won't turn up
to-night. He's probably in the local newspaper office at the present
moment, dictating the first instalment of his reminiscences. Lady
What's-her-name's book won't be in it. It will be the event of the
day."

Having made this
contribution to the general cheerfulness, Clovis went to bed. At long
intervals the various members of the house- party followed his
example.

The servants taking
round the early tea made a uniform announcement in reply to a uniform
question. Tobermory had not returned.

Breakfast was, if
anything, a more unpleasant function than dinner had been, but before
its conclusion the situation was relieved. Tobermory's corpse was
brought in from the shrubbery, where a gardener had just discovered
it. From the bites on his throat and the yellow fur which coated his
claws it was evident that he had fallen in unequal combat with the big
Tom from the Rectory.

By midday most of the
guests had quitted the Towers, and after lunch Lady Blemley had
sufficiently recovered her spirits to write an extremely nasty letter
to the Rectory about the loss of her valuable pet.

Tobermory had been
Appin's one successful pupil, and he was destined to have no
successor. A few weeks later an elephant in the Dresden Zoological
Garden, which had shown no previous signs of irritability, broke loose
and killed an Englishman who had apparently been teasing it. The
victim's name was variously reported in the papers as Oppin and
Eppelin, but his front name was faithfully rendered Cornelius.

"If he was trying
German irregular verbs on the poor beast," said Clovis, "he deserved
all he got."